e-meter (electro-psychometer)

An important part of
a Scientology auditing session is the E-meter. It lures people into
Scientology and, for some, gives a scientific basis to the methods used.
Scientologists are accepted or expelled according to its revelations. It
helps to extract the Scientologists' most intimate secrets and
confessions, including those of a sexual and criminal nature. It helps to
determine the length, intensity and nature of the auditing session. It
helps to determine the date and details of their present problems and
their past lives. --Paulette
Cooper

The e-meter (or electro-psychometer) is a
device invented
in the 1940s
by a chiropractor named
Volney Mathison.
It was originally called the Mathison Model B Electropsychometer and was
promoted as an aid to psychotherapy and chiropractic.* However, the name on
the patent application for the first e-meter was that of L. Ron Hubbard
(1911-1986), author of Dianeticsand founder of Scientology,
which credits Hubbard with invention of the device.*
(It is ironic that Scientology considers psychotherapy
to be a
great evil.) According to Hubbard's son Ronald: "My father obtained the rights to the
E-meter in1952 from Volney Mathison in the same manner that he does
everything - through fraud and coercion."*
Hubbard's patent is for a modified version of Mathison's device that was
developed by Scientologists Don Breeding and Joe Wallis in 1958.*

In the early 1950s, Hubbard discovered
that everything is striving to survive and that something is "entangling
man" (Carroll 1996).
Hubbard thought he had figured out what it was that was entangling us. Man "was
tangling himself up with combinations of mental image pictures." He claims
he measured these pictures using an e-meter. He claims the
device could measure the response of the soul "while exteriorized from a
being." The device sends a small bit of electrical energy down wires
attached to two cans (electrodes) held by the user and measures
resistance,
i.e., to what degree a body opposes the passage of an electric current.
Resistance is measured in ohms
and is affected by such physical things as moisture, temperature, and
pressure, each of which can change without the user being conscious of it
and none of which need be directly related to any thoughts or feelings of
the user. Basically, the e-meter is "an ohm-meter with continuously variable
range and sensitivity settings."*

At a purely physical level, resistance
changes are changes in the flow of electrons. Changes in the flow of
electrons can be due to changes in the source of the flow or changes in the
medium through which the electrons flow. Since the e-meter cans are
handheld, some of the changes in resistance it picks up may be due to
unconscious changes in applied pressure (the
ideomotor effect), but this does not appear to be the main factor in
e-meter changes.*
The changes are likely due either to changes in hand moisture or
temperature, or to the
flow
of ions to the surface of the skin. "Scientologists acknowledge that
people with unusually dry hands may require some skin moisturizer in order
to make a good contact with the electrodes. One wonders how many auditor
candidates have availed themselves of this solution to their spiritual
problems."*

Chris
Schafmeister, while a biophysics graduate student at the University of
California, San Francisco, wrote a paper in which he argues that the e-meter
measures modulation in the flow of electrons brought to the surface of the
skin by ions that have probably traversed "through long muscle cells, long
nerve axons, or through the bloodstream."*
Schafmeister proposed that

a scientologist learns through feedback during
auditing and feedback from the E-meter to exert control over the
semi-automatic mechanisms that control enough membrane bound ion channels
to change their body resistance enough to provoke a measurable response in
the E-meter.

It is biofeedback in its most basic sense.

Martin Hunt, an ex-Scientologist and auditor, also believes that
biofeedback mechanisms are at work here. According to
Thomas
J. Wheeler, biofeedback that involves "measurement of muscle tension and
skin temperature (higher temperature associated with relaxation)" is not
controversial. Such techniques "have been incorporated into many treatment
programs."

The electrical changes measured by an
e-meter may be directly related to changes in one's thoughts or mental
images, but what significance or meaning one gives to these changes in
electrical resistance - beyond basic principles of biophysics - is arbitrary
and subjective. The
meaningfulness of the connection between the electrical resistance of a human hand or fingers and
mental images is taken on faith. Belief in the
e-meter's capacity to tap into the depths of the soul might be the best proof that Scientology is a religion; for, it
requires a belief contrary to everything science has taught us about
electricity and the brain.

The e-meter has gone through several
generations and the current most advanced model is known as the Super Mark
VII. An electrical engineer who examined the meter in 1995 "estimated that devices of this type, custom-manufactured and sold in low
volume, would normally retail for around $300."*
Today, the device is sold by the Church of Scientology for about $4,000.*
Scientologists produce about 10,000 e-meters a year - among other things - at a $50-million plant
in Hemet, California. It takes about an hour and 20 minutes to construct one
meter (Tobin
1998). (For a look inside the Mark VII, see
www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/E-Meter/Mark-VII/. The device is basically
a
Wheatstone bridge. It has an Intel 8051 8-bit microprocessor,
unnecessary for measuring skin resistance but required for a hookup that
allows monitoring by a third person.)

According to the Church of Scientology, the e-meter is a "pastoral
counseling device" that helps locate "spiritual distress or travail."* The e-meter is also used as a recruiting
device. For example, at the Downtown Plaza in Sacramento, California, Scientologists rent
a kiosk for $2,000 a month. They offer free "stress tests" to passersby. The
stress test consists of the test subject holding the cans of an e-meter
while a Scientologist asks such
questions as "What causes you stress?" The Scientologist then
interprets any changes in the e-meter's readings.

Scientologists believe the meter can gauge energy in
the body and read spiritual trauma through a process called
auditing. By
addressing that trauma, people can neutralize these charges, they say.
Working their way through stages, they eventually reach a state they call
clear.
Scientologists believe auditing, using the E-meters, is a guide to
self-discovery.

"When a person has stressful thoughts, those
thoughts produce physical changes," says Mike Klagenberg, spokesman for
the church in the Sacramento region. "The E-meter measures those physical
changes." (Garza
2005)

According to Scientology:

When the E-Meter is operating and a person holds the
meter’s electrodes, a very tiny flow of electrical energy (about 1.5 volts
– less than a flashlight battery) passes down the wires of the E-Meter
leads, through the person’s body and back into the E-Meter. The electrical
flow is so small, there is no physical sensation when holding the
electrodes.

The pictures in the mind contain energy and mass.
The energy and force in pictures of experiences painful or upsetting to
the person can have a harmful effect upon him. This harmful energy or
force is called charge.

When the person holding the E-Meter electrodes
thinks a thought, looks at a picture, re-experiences an incident or shifts
some part of the
reactive mind,
he is moving and changing actual mental mass and energy. These changes in
the mind influence the tiny flow of electrical energy generated by the
E-Meter, causing the needle on its dial to move. The needle reactions on
the E-Meter tell the auditor where the charge lies, and that it should be
addressed by a process. (e-meter.org)

The above explanations are based on pure
speculation. There is no concept in physics or neurology of the mass and
energy of a mental image. This is not to say that thoughts don't have
physical effects. They do, of course, but it really shouldn't be much of a
revelation to find out that when one thinks of the most upsetting thing of
the day that it has a negative physical effect. Finding a reading on a meter
while having a thought or feeling is little more than a stage prop, a bit of
theater to make the process of telling you what you already know seem
magical and scientific. An interpretation in terms of engrams, the reactive
mind, and other jargon just adds to the theater and makes the
process seem more plausible than it really is.

It is interesting that the following
disclaimer accompanies the e-meter:

By itself, this meter does nothing. It is
solely for the guide of Ministers of the Church in Confessionals and
pastoral counselling. The Electrometer is not medically or scientifically
capable of improving the health or bodily function of anyone and is for
religious use by students and Ministers of the Church of Scientology only.
HUBBARD, E-METER and SCIENTOLOGY are trademarks and service marks owned by
RTC and used with its permission.

This disclaimer is in response to a 1971
ruling by the United States District Court, District of Columbia, that
declared: "the E-meter has no proven usefulness in the diagnosis, treatment
or prevention of any disease, nor is it medically or scientifically capable
of improving any bodily function." This ruling came after nearly a decade of
legal wrangling with the government over concern "that the devices were
misbranded by false claims that they effectively treated some 70 percent of
all physical and mental illness" (Janssen
1993).

In 1963, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
raided the church in Washington DC and confiscated their e-meters. The FDA
sued the Church of Scientology for fraudulent medical claims and called
the e-meter a fraudulent healing device. The church after many years
finally settled with the FDA. In part, the ruling that the church was to
abide by states concerning the e-meter:

"The device should bear a prominent, clearly visible
notice warning that any person using it for auditing or counseling of any
kind is forbidden by law to represent that there is any medical or
scientific basis for believing or asserting that the device is useful in
the diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of any disease. It should be noted
in the warning that the device has been condemned by a United States
District court for misrepresentation and misbranding under the Food and
Drug laws, that use is permitted only as part of religious activity, and
that the E-meter is not medically or scientifically capable of improving
the health or bodily functions of anyone.

"Each user, purchaser, and distributee of the
E-meter shall sign a written statement that he has read such a warning and
understands its contents and such statements shall be preserved." (United
States of America, Libelant, v. An Article or Device... "Hubbard
Electrometer" or "Hubbard E-Meter" etc., Founding Church of Scientology et
al., Claimants, No. D.C. 1-63, United States District Court, District of
Columbia, July 30, 1971 (333 F. Supp. 357) (Jacobsen
1996)

Nevertheless, Scientologists continue to
use the e-meter in auditing, although some models are designed for ease of
use by a single person, presumably to help with their spiritual development.
The Church is careful not to claim publicly that the e-meter has any health
benefits. Some Scientologists, such as
John Travolta and
Priscilla
Presley, say they use the e-meter on a regular basis. Any value the
device has comes from the
subjective validation
of the user, however. It is not difficult to see how such a device could
provide comfort to people, especially if they believe that thoughts have
mass and energy (but they are not talking about anything neurological) and
they are very creative. For such people, the e-meter could well be useful
for self-discovery. The e-meter readings can stimulate such folks to reflect
on their thoughts and actions, which may lead to active planning for the
future. The process could be an assist to self-hypnosis, psyching oneself up
with confidence and determination. With a little
communal reinforcement, it is easy to see how one might come to believe
that a device that measures nothing but electrical resistance could actually
provide useful information about what one fears and what to do with one's
life. Add trust and it is not too hard to understand how many otherwise
bright and creative people would let someone interpret an ohmmeter as if
it revealed something important about the human soul.